1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for determining the rotational position of the drive shaft of a direct current (DC) motor by evaluating the current ripple contained in the armature current signal of the DC motor.
2. Background Art
The armature current signal of a direct current (DC) motor includes a so-called direct component and a ripple component superimposed on the direct component. The ripple component arises when the DC motor is operated as a consequence of the interaction of the magnetic field, the armature winding, and the commutator of the DC motor. This expresses itself in a short-term change in the induced voltage, which produces the ripple content of the armature current signal. The current peaks contained in the armature current signal (referred to below as xe2x80x9ccurrent ripplexe2x80x9d) occur when the armature rotates, and have a frequency corresponding to the number of collector bars.
For example, if the armature has ten collector bars, the armature current signal accordingly has ten current ripples that can be identified in it. Thus, counting the current ripples can give information about the current rotational position of the armature of the DC motor and thus also regarding an element driven by it within a predetermined segment of travel. To accomplish this the analog armature current signal is digitized to be able to perform a corresponding counting.
Such processes are used, for example in the area of motor vehicles to control adjustment drives, such as are provided for power windows and/or sunroofs, for example. An essential element in capturing the position of the window glass, for example, is the position at which the pinching protection can be turned off when the window is closed. The pinching protection has to be turned off so that the window glass can go completely in its top block and into the weather strip provided there without the motor being turned off as a result of the increased load. If the counting of the current ripples to determine the position of the window glass is incorrect, it can happen that the pinching protection is turned off too early or too late.
Some electrical window raising devices with such position capture have thermal switches arranged in electrical connection between the DC motor and the evaluation electronics or the voltage source. This is intended to prevent overheating of the DC motor, perhaps in the case it is erroneously triggered, and to reduce the dangers arising from such heating. If the thermal switch is tripped, any electrical connection between the DC motor and the evaluation electronics is interrupted. Tripping the thermal switch has the consequence that the supply of power to the DC is immediately interrupted.
Nevertheless, the DC motor will still coast for a certain time and not immediately come to a stop. This means that the armature of the DC motor and, accordingly, also the window moved by it, actually still move a certain distance farther. However, capturing the position by way of detecting current ripples to take account of this coasting in the position determination is not possible due to the interrupted electrical connection between the DC motor and the evaluation electronics.
Therefore, starting from the prior art which has been discussed, the invention is based on the task of further developing the type of process mentioned at the beginning in such a way that, even if there is a sudden interruption in the electrical connection between the direct current (DC) motor and the evaluation electronics, it is possible to determine the position of the electric motor""s armature with sufficient accuracy.
This task is solved according to the invention by the fact that if the electrical connection between the DC motor and the evaluation electronics is interrupted, the rotational angle covered during the slowdown of the armature of the DC motor is approximated by determining the number of current ripples expected during this slowdown.